scary facts

Post navigation

Halloween is just around the corner and while you’re busy thinking about what costume to wear, have you ever thought about how Halloween came to be or where did this celebration start?

Here are 13 Scary facts about this world famous holiday that you probably didn’t know about:

The celebration of Halloween was inspired by the Roman festival called Pomona. Pomona is their Goddess of harvest and during her festival, people would wear different costumes and they give out Apples and Nuts to little kids. In the past, Halloween was originally called “San-Apple Night” and “Nut Crack Night”

Halloween is thought to have been celebrated since 4000 B.C… That means, this holiday has been around for over 6,000 years.

Jack-O-Lanterns originated in Ireland. They carve faces on Turnips and then put candles inside. When Halloween came to the US because of Irish Immigrants, the Americans started using pumpkins instead of turnips because they are cheaper. Pumpkins soon became the face of Jack-o-lanterns worldwide.

Halloween is the second most commercially successful holiday around the world with Christmas Day being the first. The candy industry alone profits more than $6 Billion dollars every Halloween.

The story of Jack-O-Lantern is an old folk tale in Ireland. According to legends, Jack is a mischievous man who has tricked the devil several times. And because of that, he was forbidden to enter both Heaven and Hell and was punished to live amongst humans, forever waving his lantern to stray unlucky travelers to the right path.

Dressing up in a scary fashion during Halloween nights came from an old Celtic tradition. They dress up as demons and bad spirits and roam the streets at night. This way, the real demons and bad spirits roaming the streets would never recognize them as humans and won’t harm them.

Even though it’s a common thing to see a full moon trope whenever Halloween comes, it is actually very rare to have a full moon every October 31st. The next full moon that will fall on a Halloween night is on the year 2020.

Black and orange are the official colors of Halloween not just because of some random reason. Black represents death and mystery while orange represents the year of harvest.

There are towns in the US that seemed to be in Halloween spirits all year round because of their creepy names. If you want your Halloween to be extremely thematic, you might want to visit Spiderweb South Carolina, Goblintown Virginia, Bat Cave North Carolina and Scary West Virginia

In Medieval England, a practice called “Souling” is very popular around Halloween night. Beggars and other unfortunate people would knock on people’s homes and ask for food in exchange for prayers for their dearly departed.

Halloween can be really scary but did you know some people actually suffer from a fear of Halloween? Samhainophobia is an intense and persistent fear of Halloween that can cause panic attacks in sufferers. Other relevant phobias for this time of year are wiccaphobia (fear of witches), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), and coimetrophobia (fear of cemeteries).

Children are twice more likely to get killed and get involved in vehicular accidents during Halloween nights than any other day.

The trick or treat tradition are widely popular in the United States and it has spread to Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. In parts of England, children carry lanterns called punkies (buckets that look like Jack-O-Lanterns) and they parade around town during the last Thursday of October.